There's Something about ... Luigi Gambero

 Luigi Gambero is one of the leading Mariologists of our time.  His book, "Mary and the Fathers of the Church," (Ignatius Press, 1999 based on the Italian original of 1991) is one of the more exhaustive treatments of the subject that one can find from a Roman Catholic perspective.  Sorry to my younger readers for whom the 1990s are not "our time."  Gambero's work received cover endorsements from folks like Peter Stravinskas.  He's not some random guy who happens to be Roman Catholic.

The subject matter index of his book (p. 428), however, reveals a paucity of citations on the topic of the immaculate conception.  Only six authors are identified.  I have rearranged the list from alphabetical order to appearance order in the book (which is also approximately chronological order of birth of the various authors):
1. Ephrem the Syrian (c. A.D. 306-73) p. 110
Gambero writes:

Ephrem's insistence on Mary's spiritual beauty and holiness, and on her freedom from any stain of sin, has led some scholars to hold that he was aware of the privilege of the Immaculate Conception and to point to him as a witness to the dogma. Yet it does not appear that our author was familiar with the problem, at least not in the terms in which it was made clear by later tradition and the dogmatic definition of 1854. In one passage he even uses the term "baptized" to indicate her Son's saving intervention in her regard:

Handmaid and daughter of blood and water [am I] whom You redeemed and baptized.

(Hymns on the Nativity 16, 10)

There's not much to respond to here.  I agree that Ephrem represents one of the earlier examples of high views of Mary.  I also agree that Ephrem did not know of the idea of an immaculate conception of Mary.  Terms like "redeemed" and "baptized" imply that Mary was not always pure, but became so.  As such, while Ephrem does not represent a "Protestant" position, He also does not reflect a view of accepting Mary as always sinless, even with respect to her conception.
I would add that "redeemed" is poetically paired with "blood" and "baptized" with "water."  So, we are not talking about redemption in some other sense than the sacrifice of Christ, and - of course - the Baptism is a baptism related to the forgiveness of sins.

2. Gregory Nazianzen (c. A.D. 329-90) pp. 162-63
Gambero writes:

In the mystery of the Incarnation, the bishop of Nazianzus discerns a wondrous exchange between God and Mary. She offered him the gift of her undiminished virginity, while the Lord, for his part, intervened in an extraordinary manner to bring about her purification, in advance. He empowered her human abilities, to make her worthy of the unique event of the Incarnation:

He was conceived by the Virgin, who had first been purified by the Spirit in soul and body; for, as it was fitting that childbearing should receive its share of honor, so it was necessary that virginity should receive even greater honor.[fn3]

From this doctrine of Mary's purification before the conception of Christ emerges an intuition of the truth which, in 1854, the Church would define as the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

[fn3: Sermon 38, 13; PG 36, 325B]

The sense in which Gambero's claim that from Gregory's sermon "emerges an intuition of ..." the Immaculate Conception, is that the Immaculate Conception goes far beyond what Gregory claims.  For Gregory, Mary is in need of purification, body and soul, and she receives it prior to Christ's conception.  The dogma of the Immaculate Conception goes much further.  That dogma does not teach that Mary was purified from original sin, but that she was preserved from original.  Gregory's elevation of Mary to being specially purified is a step in the wrong direction toward the immaculate conception, perhaps, but it is still fundamentally inconsistent with the immaculate conception.  So is every author, patristic or otherwise, that takes the position that Mary was purified from something that she had, rather than taking the position that Mary was preserved from ever having original sin the in the first place.

3. Augustine of Hippo(A.D. 354-430) p. 226 (and 226 n. 25)

There seems no doubt that Augustine considered Mary's exemption from sin to be a great grace. But what sins does he mean? Undoubtedly he excludes any personal sin from Mary. Is it possible to hypothesize that Augustine also intended to exclude original sin? Some scholars think so and make him a forerunner of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. A full treatment of the question would call for a lengthy discussion. To us it seems safer to adopt the contrary position, which held by many experts and appears more in accord with numerous Augustinian texts. [fn25]

I would disagree with Gambero's contention that Augustine was saying that Mary was exempt from personal sin.  That said, as Gambero correctly concedes, Augustine nowhere teaches that Mary was exempt from original sin, rather he held the contrary view.  Perhaps in another post, we will consider the question of the famous place where Augustine says he will not discuss the sins of Mary.

4. Romanos the Melodist (Late 5th century to late 6th century) pp. 328-29 (and 329 n. 8)
Gambero has a section entitled, "The Birth of Mary." Gambero writes:

Romans' hymn on the birth of the Virgin may serve as an ancient witness to the introduction of the feast (September 8) in the Church of Constantinople, under the emperor Justinian. The poet sings of this event as a triumph of grace over the weakness and failings of human nature, as revealed in the sterility of Mary's aged parents:

The prayers of Joachim and Anna and the weeping of sterility reached the ears of God and were well received. Thus they gave a life-giving fruit to the world. For while he [Joachim] was praying on the mountain, she [Anna] hid her mortification in the garden. But the barren woman then joyfully brings to light the Mother of God, the nourisher of life.[FN: On the Birth of Mary 1.]

Considering the future mission of Mary, her birth to barren parents is considered a reason for great rejoicing, which the people of Israel already share by anticipation, unwittingly:

Then the tribes of Israel heard that Anna had conceived the immaculate one. So everyone took part in the rejoicing. Joachim gave a banquet, and great was the merriment in the garden. He invited the priests and Levites to prayer; then he called Mary into the center of the crowd, that she might be magnified. [FN: Ibid. 4.]

In this hymn, Romanos recalls two important moments of Mary's infancy and youth: the years she spent in the Temple and  her betrothal to Joseph. Apparently Romanos takes his inspiration from the apocrypha, in particular from the Protoevangelium of James. Later on, addressing Anna directly, the poet weaves a marvelous praise of her extraordinary little daughter:

Your birth is worthy of veneration, O holy woman, because you brought to light the joy of the world, the powerful mediatrix of graces for men. Indeed she is the rampart, the defense, and the haven of whoever trusts in her. Every Christian finds in her, in your fruit, a protector, a defense, and the hope of salvation [FN: Ibid., 10.]

I certainly agree that literary source of this ode is the heretical forgery, the Protoevangelium of James.  Romanos does have a song on the Nativity of the Virgin Mary.  It's listed as hymn 35 in Maas' and Trypanis' edition (they also note it is 28 in Krumbacher's).  Based on a quick check, I think this is the same one quoted by Gambero.

The song does seem to be the first hint in history of any Christians celebrating the Birth of Mary.  Later, with Andrew of Crete and John of Damascus, we see that the practice apparently begun in the 6th century had caught on more widely in the 7th and 8th centuries.  Note, however, that this is the feast of the Birth of Mary, not her Conception.  There is a reason that Bernard of Clairvaux expressed concerns over the idea of celebrating such a feast, centuries later.

Of the presented material, the phrase, "ἒτεκεν τὴν ἄχραντον," translated by Gambero (or his source or his translator from Italian to English) as "had conceived the immaculate one" is the more obviously interesting.  The first issue with this translation is that ἒτεκεν means to give birth, not to conceive.  The second issue is that while ἄχραντον, which means "undefiled," can reasonably be translated here as "immaculate," it does not necessarily have anything to do with Mary's connection to original sin (or not).  That's only an issue for folks who are eager to see her as immaculately conceived and who forget that she was also viewed as an immaculate virgin.  

Moreover, while the text says that Anna gave birth to the Immaculate, this is not a commentary on when Mary became (in Romanos' understanding) Immaculate.  For example, in the first stanza we see: "But the barren woman then joyfully brings to light the Mother of God."  Surely no one would be so foolish as to think that Mary was born already a mother.  So, if one does not assume that, one should be careful what one assumes about the title, Immaculate.  

So, while Romanos is an example of relatively high Mariology, particularly for his century, he still falls short of knowing of the immaculate conception.

5. Andrew of Crete (A.D. 650-740) pp. 392-95
In a section entitled, "Mary, Spotless Creature," Gambero writes:

Andrew's witness to the Church's faith in the exceptional holiness of the Mother of the Lord is absolutely remarkable. He affirms more than once that the Blessed Virgin lived her whole life without being contaminated by any moral sin. The insistence with which the bishop of Crete returns to this point is so strong that some have seen him as an exponent of the Immaculate Conception. Even if we cannot accept this thesis without hesitation, we must at least recognize that Andrew had a highly elevated concept of the Virgin's sinlessness and holiness. We cite one of the numerous texts:

It was right, then, that the admirable Joachim and his spouse, Anna, inspired by divine thoughts, did obtain her as the fruit of their prayer, her, I say, the queen of nature, the firstfruits of our race, whose birthday we celebrate, whose swaddling clothes we honor, and whom we venerate as the source of the restoration of our fallen race. [FN: Homily 3 on Mary's Nativity, PG 97, 860 B-C]

This text presents Mary as the firstfruits of the human race; that is, the first creature who received the gift of salvation. But Andrew explains it even more clearly:

This Mary the Theotokos, the common refuge of all Christians, the first to be liberated from the original fall of our first parents. [FN: Homily 4 on Mary's Nativity, PG 97, 880 C]

We could present many more passages in which Andrew expresses this concept. However, when our author speaks of Mary as the first person to be redeemed, or as the first to be liberated from original sin, he does not define the nature of the intervention God wrought in her. Hence we would not be justified to attribute to him the concept of preservation from original sin as we understand the concept today, precisely as the solemn Magisterium of the Church has defined it. It is true that Andrew is mentioned in the bull Ineffabilis Deus as being among the witnesses to the Immaculate Conception. More than anything else, however, his testimony witness to the development of the faith of the Christian people, on their journey toward a light that would illuminate the mystery ever more clearly.

I interrupt the section here to comment.  Mary being "liberated from the original fall" seems to imply that she was under it and then subsequently freed, not preserved from it.  While Andrew's excessively high view of Mary is definitely a step in the direction that ultimately became the error of the Immaculate Conception, the evidence of him adopting such a view is not there. 

Gambero continues:

Also, we have to keep in mind that the bishop of Crete did not share the notion of original sin that the Latin theologians had already formed. Therefore, it is understandable that he could speak in these terms without considering the problem of the presence or absence of original sin in Mary.

Instead, Andrew appears to have believed that God prepared the holy Virgin in advance, on both the moral and personal level, to make her worthy and capable of being God's Mother:

A place had to be prepared before the King's arrival. The royal garments had to be woven before they could receive the royal Child at his birth. Finally, the clay had to be prepared before the Potter's arrival.[FN: Homily 3 on the Nativity, PG 97, 860 B]

We have already seen, in more than one place, how this concept of Mary's purification at the moment of the Annunciation was shared by other Fathers of the Church in preceding centuries.

This acknowledges the key point: one of the early stages of the increasing Marian devotion was to say that Mary was purified at the Annunciation, namely just before Christ's conception.  This view is inconsistent with the doctrine of the immaculate conception.  While people can certainly speculate a notion of Mary being already perfectly pure and just getting more "grace" infused into her, it is hard to conceptualize the purification of something already perfectly pure.  

6. John Damascene (c. A.D. 675 - c. A.D. 749) pp. 401-02
Gambero writes:

John Damascene often speaks of Mary as a sublime creature, filled with spiritual treasures. Accordingly, his homily on the Nativity, for example, goes so far as to make clear and explicit allusions--unprecedented in previous centuries--to the mystery of the Immaculate Conception. Naturally, it is necessary to keep in mind the different view of original sin that already divided Byzantine theology from Western thought.

For John, both the Virgin Mary's conception and her birth took place completely under the influence of divine grace. These two events also shaped the role played by her parents, Joachim and Anna. Their previous sterility is explained thus:

Because it would come to pass that the Virgin Theotokos would be born of Anna, nature did not dare anticipate the seed of grace but remained unfruitful until grace bore fruit.[FN: Homily on the Nativity 2, PG 96, 664A]

Anna's sterility was, therefore, a condition previously arranged in the divine plan, so that the role of grace would appear fully predominant. This is why Damascene always names the Virgin's parents with profound respect: they would offer themselves as the passive instruments of God's miraculous intervention:

O blessed loins of Joachim, whence the all-pure seed was poured out! O glorious womb of Anna, in which the most holy fetus grew and was formed, silently increasing! O womb in which was conceived the living heaven, wider than the wideness of the heavens [FN: Ibid., 2, PG 96, 664B]

It is worth noting here that even at the very end of the Patristic era, one must look to the very high Marian views of John of Damascus to find something approaching the Immaculate Conception.  This is not the actual doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, because of John of Damascus different view on original sin, but it is at least close.

You may recall from other discussions that for most of the fathers, Mary was not an exception because was generated the usual way: from a physical relationship between her parents.  John of Damascus finds a way around this by naming and claiming the immaculate ejaculate of Joachim.  Thankfully, that's not a dogma that Rome adopted.  If it was ever considered in Western thought, I would speculate that they would realize that this escape clause would eliminate the original need for Mary's virginity.  If Jesus could be born of Joseph's seed, some how immaculate-d beforehand, and if that would have resolved the issue, there would not have been a need for Jesus to be born of a virgin in the first place.  

We have now completed this particular survey.  Consider how little there was to review, and how far it was from demonstrating a continuous belief in the immaculate conception in the church from the time of the apostles onward.

-TurretinFan